I enjoyed the book as a sort of supernatural thriller; although I didn't really find it scary. Having come to the 20th anniversary edition; I don't know how much of this is to do with time & gore-thrillers having moved on; or how many familiar plot lines seemed to crop up. The human chess playing; the mad island owner...But it was well written enough to keep me going to the end (nearly 800 pages in my edition) even though it was a little predictable ( )

I wanted to love this novel SO BADLY, but it was just too meandering and listless for my taste. I thoroughly enjoyed the flashbacks to Chelmno and found myself rooting for overweight southern sheriffs and slimy Hollywood producers (which is to say, Simmons got it right many times over). However, with so much tangential material---the novel could have been clipped in half and would have succeeded at an epic pace---it merely plodded along. I was so grateful to finish and move on to something new. ( )

Simmons can write. The book could have been cut back some but it's not something to prevent anyone from reading this story. It's got a clever concept at heart and has plenty of creepy moments. if you can get the latest edition where he provides the history to how he broke into writing and his trials with this particular book, I highly recommend it. It's always interesting to get the author's thinking behind his/her work. Writing horror is no easy feat, but Simmons did well with this book. I also credit him for not falling into Hollywood trappings at times. Some characters perish in the book that a Hollywood producer would likely have spared. ( )

Carrion Comfort was published in France as L'Échiquier du mal in multiple editions. There was a single volume (combined with the main Carrion Comfort work), a two volume set and a four volume set. The boxed sets are combined into the main Carrion Comfort work, but the individual volumes should not be combined together.

Wikipedia in English (1)

THE PAST... Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazi’s themselves…

THE PRESENT... Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events. Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to 'use' humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression. Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their ongoing campaign of induced bloodshed and deliberate destruction. But this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul’s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind’s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself…

Haiku summary

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Three elderly friends, who possess supernatural powers and who feed off of emotions generated during the murders they orchestrate, meet every year to discuss their game, an ongoing competition of mass murder and vampirism.